J.K Rowling’s Beedle the Bard Could be Yours

Can you imagine waking up everyday knowing that you owned one of only seven original hand drawn Beedle the Bard manuscripts in existence?

I have to say I’m not certain I would have gone to sleep in the first place but then again I am not sure I will ever be in the position to own such a monumental piece of literary history. That doesn’t mean to say that it is impossible for everyone and Rowling’s Beedle the Bard could be yours if you can meet the asking price when it goes up for sale next month.

Hand drawn by Jo and gifted to Barry Cunningham the publisher who first accepted her Harry Potter story on behalf of Bloomsbury the six Tales of Beedle the Bard manuscripts are set in the Potterverse and have a pivotal role in The Deathly Hallows the final book of the Potter saga. The plot involves a copy Beedle the Bard being left to Hermione Granger by Albus Dumbledore which contains the clues used by the friends that are essential in their quest to destroy Voldemort.

We all agree that a book should never be judged by its cover but if one were to have done so with this manuscript then they would not be disappointed. This particular copy of Beedle the Bard is presented in a leather-bound book covered in semi-precious stones (rhodochrosite, which Rowling notes at the end of the volume are “traditionally associated with love, balance and joy in daily life”) and in the centre, a silver mounted skull and arrived on Cunningham’s desk in a jiffy bag and bound in a white cloth; inside the book is a note from Jo herself which reads: “To Barry, the man who thought an overlong novel about a boy wizard in glasses might just sell … THANK YOU.”

Due to be auctioned by Sotheby’s on December 13th this edition of Beedle the Bard has a guide price of between £300,000 and £500,000 and considering a seventh copy, which Rowling made to raise money for her charity Lumos, was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in 2007 for £1.95m I would imagine that the upper end of the guide price will be smashed.